Case Studies

We work with leading financial institutions to design custom research projects that answer key questions about their own and their competitors’ prospect, client and advisor experience.

Helping a Top Wealth Management Firm Break into Mobile Investing

The Challenge

A leading full-service brokerage firm engaged Corporate Insight to help the firm plan for and execute its first mobile client offering. The firm’s initial goal was to ensure that its clients could access fundamental information and activities through a mobile-friendly version of its website. With that in mind, they wanted guidance on which pages of the current website they should develop for the mobile-friendly version, along with input on the design of these key pages. Additionally, the firm wanted assistance formulating a long-term strategy for the mobile channel, which is emerging as a key competitive battleground for the industry.

The Solution

The Corporate Insight team leveraged our 2014 Investor Survey Report findings on mobile brokerage platform usage and importance, as well as competitive intelligence from our Mobile Monitor service, to identify pages of the firm’s current client site that we believed would be of the greatest value to mobile users. We also provided commentary on other features that the firm might consider developing for a mobile website or app down the road. Our analysis considered such factors as demand from key demographic groups, such as affluent Baby Boomers, as well as competitor offerings.

Next, we shared a comprehensive set of best practices for the pages approved for development by the firm, drawing on our Mobile Monitor research and the Mobile Capabilities category of our Brokerage Website Audit. We provided a broad array of examples from both the mobile Web as well as native apps, when applicable, to help the firm learn from others’ successes (and mistakes) in designing its own mobile offering.

Finally, as the firm proceeded in developing its mobile pages, we provided expert review and feedback on wireframes using mobile design best practices as well as our experience in analyzing mobile finance websites and apps. Our input helped identify strengths and weaknesses in the proposed designs, and provided specific recommendations to help improve the usability of the interface.

The Impact

At every stage of the mobile development process, Corporate Insight’s team was able to provide timely research and feedback to support the client firm’s planning and development efforts. We helped the client firm set development priorities for its first smartphone app and revealed opportunities for differentiation from its full-service firm peers.